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Women work without a break for their families, society, and friends all through the year. So, on IWD 2016, LEAD conducted their 3rd annual "Recognizing the Unrecognized", where women in our society who are rarely recognized but are responsible for important work were recognized for their contributions, such as cleaning railway stations, bus stands, picking household trash, selling vegetables etc. LEAD and LEADers believe that, without these women, our communities would come to a standstill.

The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. To that purpose, the LEaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) Program of the Deshpande Foundation was born. LEAD develops innovative and entrepreneurial thinking within college students by exposing them to social issues, encouraging them to volunteer their time and effort into the community, and igniting their latent talent to come up with creative solutions. Through this unique platform provided by LEAD, students are gaining the skills and confidence needed to transform their visions into realities. Armed with guidance, exposure, networking opportunities, financial assistance, and encouragement from LEAD, students from throughout 75 colleges and 14 districts are unleashing their leadership potential to go on inspiring and improving those around them.

The 6th Yuva Summit, an international youth conference on leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship hosted by the Leaders Accelerating Development program, began in Hubballi on 6th February with Mr. Ravindranath Gumaste, Managing Director of Kirloskar Ferrous Industries Ltd., cutting the ceremonial ribbon that let the hundreds of attendees, including students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and honoured guests, into the event grounds.

On 24th January, 107 promising students from across Karnataka and neighbouring states descended upon the VTU campus in Belagavi to mark the kick-off of the 5th annual LEAD Prayana. These students, along with 32 beginning their journey on the same day in Nizamabad, were selected from a pool of almost 500 applicants. LEAD Prayana, which began in 2012 with just 63 students, is an annual leadership journey that takes almost 150 passionate students between the ages of 18-26 throughout India on a 14-day tour across Karnataka...

I am passionate about science, especially physics. My affair with Science started during my childhood and it deepened in my high school when I started participating in Science exhibitions with my models. During Pre University Education, I built the Levitation Train with few of my friends and grabbed prizes at several competitions. “Physics of the Impossible” by Michio Kaku was a book that exposed me further to the vastness of the science and motivated me to start a science group called “Blackbody Science Group (Which Absorbs All Wavelength of Intuitive Minds)”. This group engages in creating interest about science among government and physically disabled school children.

“I believe that true happiness is the ability to bring
smiles to others’ faces.”

I believe
that our country has everything that it needs-we’re just not using what we have
in the right way.Still, many people
today are working hard to create new things.But if everyone works to create new things, there is no meaning.For this reason, I have dedicated my work to
making improvements to existing things.

My village,
Bommanalli, near Sirsi, had a water problem.
During the hotter seasons, our people suffered from water
shortages. I wanted my village to have a
water tank to prevent this problem from happening in the future. I knew that while our village could not
afford to fund the construction of a water tank, the Gram Panchayath
could. The Gram Panchayath sanctions
money for these kinds of things, but the money was not being properly
utilized. I wanted to use this money to
help my village.

It was very
difficult to approach the Gram Panchayath because they did not know who I
was. They did not take me
seriously. They questioned me…questions
such as “Who are you?” and “Why should we give you the money?”. I became angry because they were not
listening to me, but I never lost my confidence. I kept approaching them. They eventually became frustrated with me,
but I did not care. I wanted to create
change, and I wanted other people to look at my village as an example of
possibility and opportunity.

My
perseverance made the Gram Panchayath to sanction Rs. 2 lakh for the
construction of a water tank in my village.
My project actually turned out to be more successful than I had
initially planned for; During my meetings with the Gram Panchayath, it also
became known that my village did not have any streetlights. So, in addition to funding the water tank,
the Gram Panchayath funded Rs. 34,000 to construct streetlights in my
village.

This project
taught me many important lessons. I
learned how to communicate with different types of people. Not everyone thinks the same way, and we have
to adjust our approach for each individual in order for him/her to
understand. When we do not understand
each other, that poses a big problem.
When we can understand each other, so many solutions to big problems
become available.

When I got an award from Ratan Tata at Yuva Summit
2013, that was a huge moment for me. After that, I kept getting so
many ideas, and I have since completed many projects.

I believe that
true happiness is the ability to bring smiles to others’ faces. This is the main value that I plan to instill
throughout my life Whatever I end up doing, I will create happiness for myself
by giving others a reason to smile. I
want to help society. I want to be a
voice for the people. From my work with
LEAD, I have learned the value of understanding, and I want others to also
learn the same lessons.